About two hours ago—at about 8AM EST this morning—a piece of an old Russian-built weather satellite sped by the International Space Station, dangerously close to the station. It’s the fourth time that astronauts aboard the ISS have “sheltered” because of space junk. »7/16/15 10:45am 7/16/15 10:45am

Something lit up the sky over a whole swath of the lower Eastern states last night, catching eyes all the way from Florida up through West Virginia. So what are we looking at here? A meteor, perhaps, or a fireball? Nope, it’s actually something a lot stranger. »6/30/15 2:55pm 6/30/15 2:55pm

Something must be done to deal with the estimated 100 million bits of man-made space junk circling the planet, and Japan is taking the lead. But can we do? Shoot it with a laser? Invent Wall-E-like robots to collect it? Nah… let's just blast a big net into space. »1/15/14 12:24pm 1/15/14 12:24pm

Space junk is a serious problem: it threatens satellites and spacecraft, and can plummet unpredictably to earth. Australia's Murchison Widefield Array is a high-sensitivity radio telescope that tracks space debris as small as 1 meter across, by observing how the objects reflect FM signals from Australian radio… »11/30/13 6:00pm 11/30/13 6:00pm

The International Space Station is executing an evasive maneuver in a few hours, following the protocol for when there's more than a one in 10,000 chance of a space collision. »10/03/12 2:48pm 10/03/12 2:48pm

The earth's orbit is a giant wasteland filled with space junk - about 20,000 pieces of debris that are four inches or larger. This space junk doesn't always stay in space; sometimes it falls back to earth. »9/08/11 9:00pm 9/08/11 9:00pm

The problem of space junk is being dealt with in a novel way by Japanese space agency JAXA, which plans to rope up loads of the broken old stuff from the 1960s in an old-fashioned, analogue, traditional net several kilometres wide. The triple-layered metal thread net will then be burned up in the atmosphere once full,… »2/08/11 4:00am 2/08/11 4:00am

Earth's orbit is cluttered with dead satellites and other assorted space junk, making it increasingly dangerous for the ISS and new satellites. DARPA's solution? Catch 'em all in a big ol' net. »8/16/10 7:40pm 8/16/10 7:40pm

Spacejunk is everything from spent rocket upper-stages that measure meters across, to lost bags of tools let go by careless astronauts, to shattered Chinese satellites to flecks of paint moving at 25 times the speed of sound. Under the wrong circumstances any piece of junk could kill a perfectly good satellite or… »8/03/10 8:00pm 8/03/10 8:00pm

What weights four pounds, is made of metal, and crashes through roofs at supersonic speeds? If you are a retired couple living in West Hull, Britain, the Royal Air Force says that's a chunk of space junk. »10/16/09 11:31am 10/16/09 11:31am

Members of the ISS crew climbed aboard the Soyuz TMA-13 capsule for about 10 minutes today as a precaution against space debris passing nearby. The threat was called off around 12:45 EDT. »3/12/09 12:59pm 3/12/09 12:59pm